Chan Lowe: FPL gets approval for more nukes

One of the advantages of working at a newspaper office in downtown Oklahoma City during the early ’80s was that I could pop over to the federal courthouse during my lunch hour and sit in on a trial.

The most memorable of these was the civil suit by the family of the late Karen Silkwood, a plutonium-processing worker, against the Kerr-McGee Corporation. Kerr-McGee was the energy conglomerate that owned and operated the Cimarron plant where Ms. Silkwood became contaminated with deadly radiation. The events were so compelling that a major movie, starring Cher and Meryl Streep, was made about them.

The center of attention at the real-life trial was celebrated litigator Gerry Spence, who was imported from Wyoming to give the closing argument. The Kerr-McGee corporate attorneys — clad in Brooks Brothers suits and bearing snooty Ivy League accents — coldly and dispassionately presented a legally correct defense. Spence, on the other hand, wore a fringed buckskin jacket and bolo tie, left his Stetson resting prominently on the plaintiff’s table and propped a cowboy-booted foot on the jury box while he cajoled his enthralled listeners in clear, easy-to-understand language.

The jury returned a verdict in the eight figures against Kerr-McGee for its responsibility in ending Ms. Silkwood’s life — more than her family’s team even originally asked for. I ascribe this partly to Mr. Spence’s oratorical skills, but also to the lead defense attorney’s unfortunate habit of pronouncing “laboratory” in the British manner — which made him sound like Boris Karloff in “Frankenstein,” and which Mr. Spence mirthfully mimicked to the delight of the crowd.

I remember two salient facts about the trial. First, we learned that when ambient radiation readings at the plutonium facility spiked, the plant manager ordered that the walls receive a new coat of paint, figuring that that would resolve the issue. This suggests that when there’s a profit motive involved, and a corporate culture built around keeping costs down, it might not be the greatest idea to let a private company play around with deadly substances unless there’s strict and constant oversight from a third party representing the public interest.

The other was that the trial was conducted directly across the street from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. That site is now occupied by a memorial park and reflective pool, which stand in mute testimony to the fact that our society will always remain vulnerable to the unexpected.

Just a couple of random thoughts, but worth pondering as FPL plans its Turkey Point expansion.